Portland Art Museum Hosts Great Painters in Brescia

Saturday, 19 August 2006 09:45

PORTLAND, OR - The Portland Art Museum engages in a major international cultural exchange with the museums of Brescia, Italy and the international exhibition company Linea d'ombra, to present Great Painters in Brescia from the Renaissance to the 18^th Century.  The Portland Art Museum is the exclusive North American venue for this special exhibition, bringing for the first time treasures of Italian art from the 16^th to 18^th century to the city of Portland.  The exhibition showcases 35 works from Brescia's museums, presented in a broad chronological survey that outlines the trajectory of the art of painting as it developed in this Italian city.  Subjects ranging from awe-inspiring religious scenes to portraits of riveting psychological intensity introduce the viewer to the essence of Italy's finest artistic achievements.  Great Painters in Brescia from the Renaissance to the 18^th Century on view until September 17, 2006.

"This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bring the artistic legacy of a regional artistic center in Italy to a burgeoning cultural community in the Pacific Northwest," said Penelope Hunter-Stiebel, Curator of European Art at the Portland Art Museum.  "It came about as part of an extended exchange where the Portland Art Museum lent three of its Impressionist paintings to Brescia for the 2005 exhibition Monet, the Seine and the Waterlillies, organized by Linea d'ombra.  More than 440,000 visitors in Italy saw the hugely successful exhibition.  Now, Linea d'ombra has made it possible for us to present masterpieces that we have selected from the holdings of the museums of Brescia to represent this city's special contribution to the development of Renaissance and Baroque painting."

About the Exhibition
The exhibition presents paintings by artists who worked in Brescia over a span of three centuries.  It is divided by century with thematic sub-groupings.

• Portraits
• Frescoes from the private palaces of Brescia
• Devotional paintings and altarpieces

• Large-scale decorative cycles
• Landscapes

"The paintings of Giacomo Ceruti and Antonio Cifrondi dramatically break with the general preconceptions of 18^th-century artifice," says Hunter-Stiebel, “In paintings like Ceruti’s Two Beggars (1730-34) and The Spinner (1730-34) the most humble citizens of Brescia are portrayed with honesty and respect.  These masterpieces of realism cannot fail to win the hearts of viewers with their celebration of a universal humanity."  Curator Linea d'ombra.

About Brescia
The city of Brescia, Italy is situated in the region of Lombardy, Italy's most populous.  The city is also the administrative capital of the large Province of Brescia, and lies on the major route between Milan and Venice.  Just 50 miles east of Italy's largest city, Milan, and about 100 miles from Venice, the long history of the city begins in pre-Roman times where it was an important strategic and cultural hub.  The city's prominence as a trading and manufacturing center grew through the Middle Ages and Renaissance when it became one of Italy's remarkable regional centers of art.

Thanks to its longevity and position as a vital commercial, manufacturing, and industrial center, Brescia produced a wealth of artistic and cultural treasures.  This is apparent from the rich holdings of the city’s museums, whose administration has partnered with Linea d'ombra to present this international exchange with the Portland Art Museum.  Brescia’s great picture gallery, the Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo, is the source of most of the paintings in this exhibition.  The Pinacoteca was created in 1908 with collections from Count Leopoldo Martinengo and Count Paolo Tosio.  The frescoes in this exhibition come from the Museo di Santa Giulia - a major civic museum recently created by the city of Brescia in a recently renovated medieval monastery complex.

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